Core
by ShindaHotaru
Summary: Sometimes it needs a moment or two, the split of a second, to discover that there's more to a person than meets the eye. (short story collection)
1. Chapter 1

Sometimes he would just pause to take in the moment. The feeling of being free, the endlessness of the sea below and the sky above, the bonding to this ship he calls his home. The feeling of being home.

He'd listen closer to the life around him, the sounds and the smells. The presence of his nakama, as the joyful squeals on deck, the distant noise of cooking from the galley, the soft piano play floating closer from his right.

And he would concentrate more, focus on the things he usually didn't hear, the things he usually didn't see. Then he would hear a quill scratching over parchment, the clicking of barbells, the dull sound of a hammer working on wood. If he let his imagination play, he could even hear pages of a book being turned in the far distance through thick walls.

Then he'd stand there, with his eyes closed, his senses opened, absorbing the world around him. Soaking it up like a sponge, every ounce of positivity, of being welcome and wanted, of joy and peace, of friendship and family. For the moments in which none of this will be.

For they are destined to happen, when he least expects them.


	2. Chapter 2

Fights were rare among the crew, well at least the kind where you yell at each other and hurt the other's feelings. They were rare, even more between the two of them.

He'd slammed the door of the galley shut after losing the argument, for the uptenth time, and escaped to his personal space in the sheltering wombs of the Sunny. Everyone fortunately knew to leave him be, that usually calmed him down a little. Though they could be really mean, they knew when to be a true friend even in a situation like this.

Exhausted he settled down behind his desk, leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Things would be all fine again tomorrow, or maybe even at dinner but that never erased these words from his mind. For the moment, he just wanted to float in this pool of emotions and allow them to have their way with his mind. He usually swallowedhis feelings but throughout the years he had taught himself to express them or at least let them take a hold of him for a little while. It made things so much easier and him so much happier in the long run.

And drawing helped too. Straightening up, he opened his eyes to scan the room for his sketchbook. He remembered dropping it on the floor when the storm had rolled over the ship... ah! there.

A small smile on his lips he opened it to a blank page and got to work, allowing his emotions to pour out of his system onto the paper.

* * *

"What the fuck, Luffy!" He's just found his sketchbook opened to the page he was working on all night long, and a crappy doodle right in the center of the drawing. It could've been anyone but no one's as untalented at drawing as Luffy.

"Eh?" the strawhat captain props himself up on his elbows, his hair a mess from rolling on the grass with Chopper. He seems oblivious to the tension their fight from yesterday left between them; something that never fails to agitate Usopp.

"What the fuck have you done to my drawing!"

"Ah." Luffy drops back to the ground, putting the hat on his face to shield from the sun. "I edited it."

"I fucking know that. Why have you done that?"

"Cause that guy was sitting in the rain all alone so I gave him an umbrella."

"I see that! Just why have you d-" A sudden thought pops up in his head. He looks at his drawing again, the silhouette of a man sitting alone in the rain, now with a funny umbrella above his head. He drew it for the feeling their fight has cursed him with, so what if the umbrella was Luffy's way of apologizing? "You…" Tears blur his vision for a second, he wipes them away quickly to look down at his best friend. "...thank you."

A broad smile flashes up underneath the hat while the sniper's disappearing below deck again.


	3. Chapter 3

Escaped from the unpleasant weather outside, Robin had settled into the quietness of their kind-of-library, accompanied by the soft sounds of the rain knocking on the windows and the book she was currently reading. It was quite as interesting and fascinating as it was complex. The author didn't seem to be an experienced one which made it so much harder to follow, as well as the many years of difference between speech now and then.

Hence she wasn't in the galley as most of the group that had decided on a match of poker till the rain would subside. (She had been excluded from all card games anyway for obvious reasons.) This spot on the Sunny was perfect in that way, most of the crew didn't spend much time in here anyway.

And that was why she was surprised to hear the voice of their musician from across the table.

"Have I startled you? Pardon me," Brook apologized in that formal way of his.

"No, it's fine," she smiled back at him, "I wasn't prepared for any company, that is all."

"Ah, well, Usopp-san and Nami-san weren't happy with the way I was winning," the skeleton explained, a little amusement was audible in his voice, "It seems like it's my lucky day."

Robin giggled. "Yes, they can be cruel when it comes to that."

Silence enfolded between the two of them, lingering at the verge of awkwardness that as much as Robin disliked it was part of every encounter with Brook since their first meeting a few weeks ago. If that was ever going to change, she wondered, but in the same moment she couldn't quite imagine into what.

So she offered him a soft smile and returned her attention back to her book as soon as he had responded. There was one thing she liked about him: Contrary to her younger crewmates, he was able to understand subtle gestures and not be offended by them, despite some issues, he was well-mannered and had adapted a certain etiquette that seemed more natural with him than with their cook.

"Ah, sorry for disturbing again, Robin-san, is this book about the Miracle of Ahona?"

She looked up to the older man in front of her, blinked, then turned the book to glance at the cover. It didn't say anything other than that it was a documentation of an extraordinary event and the name of the unpopular, by now dead author. "Yes, it is, how do you know?"

Brook straightened up in his seat. "I was in my early teenage years when it occurred."

Of course, why hadn't she thought of it? Their musician was _a lot_ older than them and not as oblivious to the world than some of their crewmates; why hadn't she thought about this possibility?

Her surprise must have been visible in her look, as Brook chuckled and continued. "I was about thirteen and in a neighboring city, the townspeople didn't stop talking about it for a month..." His voice faded as he turned his head towards the window, clearly caught in a memory. "Ah, what does the book say?"

Robin mentally shook off the petrifying surprise and replied, "It's not easy to understand, the author seems very inexperienced and it seems to be written in some kind of dialect."

"May I take a look?" Carefully he took the book from his crewmate's hands, apparently trained at treating old and fragile objects. Or just the possessions of other's. Another thing Robin liked about him.

He only seemed to be flying over the pages, flipping through them quickly with a finger on the page Robin had stopped reading. So considerate, she noticed, how had someone like him become a pirate? She couldn't help but wondering about that even more now.

"It's an old dialect of that region, I happen to understand but not speak it." He returned the book to the archeologist with a smile, "Thank you."

"How did you know that it was about the Miracle of Ahona? The cover and spine don't give any clues about it," she voiced her thoughts, still _clueless_ about her crewmate.

"I recognized the name of the author. He was the mayor of Ahona, and this documentation wasn't meant for anyone who isn't one of the Ahona people." Brook took a sip of his tea before adding: "I remember when it was released about a year after. There was only one copy but much more were requested by the townspeople. There was a mess over a simple book but people wanted to inherit it to their children so the miracle would never be forgotten. Unfortunately, that happened."

"What exactly happened? I read that there was great misery in Ahona for several years but I don't know what exactly it was," Robin sighed, admitting defeat.

"That's a longer story," Brook began, another sip of his tea, continued, "Ahona was a young country back in the days, it had only been about half a century old when it happened." Dramatic pause for another gulp of his precious tea, "Some people from the neighboring countries founded it to escape from poverty or the law in their old homes. At first, it was all good, the countryside and nature was close to what is considered a paradise. It didn't take long for the young settlement to grow on to farming and selling their harvest until the city of Ahona was founded. Things started to become ugly from then on."

Listening carefully to his every word, Robin didn't even notice the soft smile spreading on her lips. It felt good to finally have someone there who didn't treat history as something unpleasant and unwanted but seemed to be aware of its value. Or maybe she got carried away too much.

"The richer they became, the more thoughtlessly they treated nature. In the end, they had worn out the fields and dried nature out completely that there was no harvest to gain from anymore," Brook continued, "Poverty, criminality, hunger and death settled into Ahona and demanded many people's lives. Hope was lost very fast when help from the other countries didn't come."

"Why didn't they help out when they profited from the connections? I assume they exported their harvest," Robin threw in when Brook paused for another sip of tea.

"Good question. They did and the deal was fair but to the other countries, the people of Ahona were still unwanted outlaws. This didn't stop until the miracle," he explained. "The more everyone was surprised when a stranger from a far away country took over the leadership of Ahona. Overnight, the country was back to its rich and perfect nature. No one knew what had happened, no one knew and I guess, no one still does."

Indeed, that was quite a miracle or rather a very good mystery. Even so good that it was hard to believe that it had really happened. But how could she deny it when a witness was sitting right in front of her? "That's really miraculous. What happened to the stranger?"

Brook put down his cup and set to refill it but found the pot empty. "He stayed for a while, I believe, but his impact on Ahona's reputation stayed forever."

"What do you mean?" Robin asked in confusion.

"Before the miracle, outside of the lands of Ahona, products coming from the country were sold as low quality, more specifically 'made by the hands of the unholy'. People in and around Ahona were very religious, so when an unknown stranger helped the damned country out of misery, everybody thought it had been chosen by God." He stopped talking and sat up again, his face turned to her, "Would you excuse me, I would like to get some more tea."

"Oh, yes, of course," she smiled brightly at him, "I think I am satisfied for now anyway." She closed the book, put it on the table and stood up, "How about we get back into the game?"

He blinked at her for a second, then smiled back. "What a good idea, Robin-san, but I must warn you, I have my lucky day today."

She chuckled at him, "We'll see about that."

Maybe encounters with him would stop being awkward from now on. And maybe next time before she'd start a new mystery, she would think of him first.


	4. Chapter 4

Bum. Dadum. Bum. Dadum.

The rhythm of the percussions echo through the night, so loud and intense, reaching for their attention. Along with the cracking of the fire, the aggressive but warming flames in the center of the group, it lulls everyone in a daze.

They have been invited to a nightly ritual held by a tribe after saving them from intolerant villagers. To bless them for the rest of their journey, they were holding a purifying ritual to get rid of evil spirits of the past. The music and the fire should chase them away, into the dark night sky.

But all they do is letting the drums resonate in his heart. Bum. Dadum. Dadum-dadum… the cracking of the flames as they were ascending to the heavens above; he couldn't fight the memories rushing over and drowning him in their wake.

Those flames; reaching to the sky, reaching out and failing. The drums, like a heartbeat, reminding him of his own vitality while the one he needs to hear has long faded.

As the rhythm grows faster, his heart beats faster inside his chest, so loud as if to crush his eardrums. His eyes are fixed on the fire pit as the flames are lashing out for him, wanting him, needing him but never even coming a foot close. He wants to reach out and help, he wants to feel it and burn himself, he wants to feel the vital warmth.

Powerless he sits and watches as they lose strength, never reaching the sky, never reaching _him_. And as they're being extinguished in one swift move, the music grows louder, the drums change into a mad rhythm that matches the beating of his heart. Until within one second, they slow down and come to an halt.

But his heart keeps beating through the repercussions of his memories.


End file.
